Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, made her first diplomatic trip outside the United States as representative of the Obama administration. Her choice of Japan as the first stop on her Asian itinerary pleased Japanese. (In 1998 President Bill Clinton bypassed Japan completely for his week-long trip to China).
She said on February 17, 2009 that "the alliance between the United States and Japan is a cornerstone of our foreign policy, as working together to deal with a multitude of issues not only in Asia and the whole world is the top priority of the Obama administration."
Such a statement reassured Japanese leaders who had been wary about how a new Democratic administration would deal with Japan. President Obama's invitation to Prime Minister Taro Aso to visit the White House on February 24, 2009 as the first foreign leader was received exceedingly well, despite Aso's approval ratings have precipitately dropped below 10 percent.
During Secretary Clinton's visit, Pakistan and Afghanistan were often mentioned. Clinton commended Japan for being "a leader in promoting stability and prosperity in Pakistan and Afghanistan." She referred to "the amount of work and the financial contributions that Japan has undertaken" in Pakistan and Afghanistan," and she pledged "high-level US participation in the Pakistan donors conference" that will be held later in Japan. She also thanked Japan for its contribution to "the coalition mission in Afghanistan" and for "Japan's dispatch of two naval vessels to the Gulf of Aden to help fight this scourge of piracy."
Her praise and lavish commendation, however, carry the hefty price tag; her statement was made at the time of signing the Guam International Agreement between the United States and Japan. The agreement is for the modernisation of our military posture in the Pacific by "the realignment of our forces and the relocation of marines from Okinawa to Guam."
Under the agreement, Japan will shoulder a total of US $2.8 billion on "projects to develop facilities and infrastructure on Guam" for the relocation of some 8,000 Third Marine Expeditionary Force personnel out of the 50,000-strong US Marine Corps contingent in Okinawa and their 9,000 family members from Okinawa by 2014.
While the agreement was formally signed, the people in Futema City, Okinawa where a new expansion of the US Marines' base is to be constructed in the Futema Replacement Facility are not happy as the air base will seriously endanger the already endangered dugong, a large marine mammal.
The price for maintaining what Hillary Clinton calls "the strong and vibrant alliance that we enjoy" is Japan's increasing engagement in international affairs such as reconstruction of Afghanistan, anti-terrorism in Pakistan and combating pirates off Somalia, as referred to by Clinton.
As for Japan's assistance to Afghanistan, Clinton expressed the deep appreciation to Japan for its reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan: "Schools have been built. Children are going to school that would not otherwise have been able to do so without the generosity of the Japanese people. There will be a new airline terminal opening up. And it is, again, a tangible sign of the willingness by the Japanese people to try to help the people of Afghanistan, and there are many other examples."
Japan is the top economic contributor to Pakistan, according to the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Japan's economic assistance to Pakistan started in 1954, and since then, it has continuously played a role in Pakistan's development. Japan's accumulated total economic assistance to Pakistan was US $5,237.30 million until 2005 in terms of disbursement.
"The Japanese economic co-operation has immense role in our socio-economic development," said Secretary Economic Affairs Division, Farrukh Qayyum on February 14, 2009, while commenting on the Japanese assistance for Pakistan in the fields of education, health, energy, environment, water, disaster management, human uplift and poverty reduction in general and in the Non Project Grant Aid in particular.
Of course, Japan's economic assistance to Pakistan is the outcome of its own consideration of national interest. But the involvement of the United States in the war in Afghanistan has inevitably brought Japan's foreign policy in line with its own ally's policy. The more Japan wishes to be treated properly as the close ally of the United States, the more Japan is expected to do its corresponding share as the United States' ally.
In Bush Senior's first Gulf War, Japan picked the tab of whopping US $13 billion! In the present W. Bush's Iraq War, Japan provided troops for non-combat purposes in Iraq and the supply of refuelling oil in the Indian Ocean for the coalition mission in Afghanistan.
Hillary Clinton met Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, on February 17, 2009, and, according to the New York Times, Ozawa told Mrs Clinton that "he valued the alliance with the United States," but he emphasised that "he wanted the relationship to be on a more equal footing, criticising the current government for following Washington too slavishly."
What is the implication of "the relationship to be on a more equal footing"? Japan is under the US nuclear umbrella in the first place. Under the US-Japan Mutual Security Pact, Japan has no obligation to defend the United States, thanks to Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan. Is Ozawa suggesting Japanese troops participate in the international security assistance force in Afghanistan?
At the news conference after the signing of the Guam International Agreement mentioned above, the following exchange took place between Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times and Secretary Clinton:
"RICHTER: Madame Secretary, Pakistan has reached an agreement with militants in the Northwest Territories that will halt government military offences there in the hope of reaching peace, and I wonder if you have any concern that this might end up being a capitulation to a strategy that hasn't worked in the past.
"SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Paul, I think that the decision that was announced by the Government of Pakistan has to be thoroughly understood, and we're in the process of pursuing that at this time. Obviously, we believe that the activity by the extremist elements in Pakistan poses a direct threat to the Government of Pakistan, as well as to the security of the United States, Afghanistan, and a number of other nations not only in the immediate region.
"So before I comment on what its meaning might be, I want to be sure that we have as good an understanding of both the Pakistan Government's intention and the actual agreed-upon language. And that I don't have at this time, so I want to wait until we can provide that."
This exchange was about the 10-day cease-fire in the Swat Valley agreed upon on February 15, 2009 between the Taliban and the government as a "goodwill gesture" toward the peace talks, and the government offered to reinstate Sharia law in Malakand if the Taliban agreed to peace.
Several days later, the Taliban and the government of North West Frontier Province have agreed to a permanent cease-fire in Pakistan's volatile Swat Valley, an official said on February 21, 2009.
The western governments in the coalition mission in Afghanistan fear that a cease-fire could not only result in another sanctuary in Pakistan where al Qaeda and Taliban militants could move freely, but also agreement to reinstate Sharia law in the Swat Valley could be considered the capitulation of the government to the Taliban's demand. They worry that the Taliban in the region will be encouraged by the government's move.
Advisor to the Prime Minister Ikhtiar Baig said the government was sending a high-level delegation led by the Foreign Minister to Washington, D.C. to remove certain apprehensions of the US administration and to explain rationale of the peace agreement in Swat.
The United States and other countries in the coalition mission in Afghanistan have spent considerable time, resources and military and civilian personnel to uproot the Taliban and al Qaida from Afghanistan only to find out, it seems, Pakistan capitulating to the Taliban's entrenched radical militants in the tribal areas near the Afghan border.
As previously mentioned in this column ("The War in Afghanistan I & II," October 22 & 29, 2008), the war in Afghanistan has become Pakistan's war. Nato commanders and Western diplomats have been saying for some time that the Taliban insurgency cannot be defeated by military means alone, and so, they are suggesting that negotiations with the Taliban will ultimately bring an end to the War in Afghanistan.
Principal commanders on the ground are more or less in agreement: the solution to the War in Afghanistan is not in the military power, but in more basic improvements in the conditions of life: rehabilitation and construction of infrastructure, provision of better basic services of government, and the establishment of good governance in all public sector administration in addition to more training of Afghan troops and police force.
A new strategy calls for a political settlement. Such settlement, be it in Afghanistan or Pakistan, needs to be consonant with major values expressed in the contemporary international human rights law as referred to in this column last month ("The Re-affirmation of the values of human dignity," January 7, 2009). The imposition of a radical interpretation of Islamic law that, among other things, allows severe retribution in the form of assassination.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani must reinforce his policy of bringing the Tribal Areas into the rest of Pakistan. The international community must support the Prime Minister's program to incorporate the tribal areas into the normal jurisdiction of Pakistan whereby the full extent of rights and obligations of the law of Pakistan will apply to the people in the tribal areas.
As Pakistan is going through the difficult phase of political development in search of its own place in the international community, so is Japan, being engulfed in the midst of the worst economic recession after the Second World War. Japan has been drifting like a rudderless ship in the sea of political uncertainty at home. Secretary Clinton surely hedged her bets in meeting opposition leader Ozawa.